"I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

"And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'"

- Minnie Louise Haskins (1800s); quoted by King George VI during an address to the nation, December 25, 1939

YOU DON'T HAVE TO FRET BECAUSE THE WORLD DIDN'T END LAST WEEK (we still have the enviro/mental-wackos to nag us!). The other day I saw the following headline:

"Assistant Surgeon General of the U.S. tells how . . POLLUTION IS KILLING US AND IT'S ALMOST TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT."

That was published January 31, 1971. That's how long they've been nagging us! These are the same people who gave us the Zero Population Growth movement and ObamaCare (did you know that the National Enquirer cost 15 cents in 1971?).

Well, as we go into the darkness of a new year, I'm here to tell you that we have bigger problems to the worry about than the Fiscal Cliff or so-called global warming. In the first place, global war would cause a lot more pollution than the industrial age. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) said:

"The condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone."

Things never change, do they? I just heard that over 40,000 people have died in Syria since the "revolution" started there — and I still can't figure out which side the United States is on (rumors say that our employees in Libya were recruiting fighters for Syria?). One thing we know for sure is that our government threw nothing but cold water on the uprising by the Iranian people against their theocratic dictators. Current events are so confusing — even for us news junkies!

Those people who avoid the news — on purpose! — voted overwhelmingly for the incumbent in our country. When he said that "the private sector is doing just fine," they believed him! What would they know (they've never had a real job). There was only one issue for them: "What would Santa Claus (Uncle Sam) bring them next year?"

That reminds me of a joke: According to tradition, Alexander-the-Great ran across the writer Diongenes sunning on a beach one day, and Alexander said, "Is there anything I can do for you?" (evidently currying favor with an independent "journalist"), and Diogenes said:

"Stand out of my light."

And I think the next thing he said was, "SOME PEOPLE just have no sense of humor!"

Well I hate to ramble, but on second thought I deserve to ramble; I'm about to do New Year's Eve for the 71st time (1942 was my first one). As I was telling someone the other day, my grandparents were born in the 1880s and John Quincy Adams, the sixth President, died only 30 years, approximately, before they were born -and John Quincy Adams was twelve years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed. He remembered it!

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS THAT AMERICA IS TOO YOUNG TO DIE.

P.S.

Btw, I wasn't sure how "septuagenarian" was spelled so I looked it up in the dictionary. Did you know that it's smack dab between "Septuagint" and "septic tank"? I'm at that awkward age. I guess the conclusion to draw is that if I ever kick the bucket, you can either bury me on the Lone Prairie with a Bible in my hand, or just flush me down the toilet. What difference does it make?

The main advantage to the Christian religion is that, ideally, it keeps us humble enough so that we don't become narcissistic.

PPS: Studies have shown that people with an unrealistically high "self-esteem" are more likely to have temper tantrums should they ever be "dissed." This has a bearing on mass violence, but more on that subject next week maybe.

I would just conclude by saying that if Annie L. Gaylor (FFR foundation) ever read history, she would be shocked. Our founding families and their Anglo-Saxon predecessors wanted freedom OF religion — not religious persecution or freedom FROM religion. I could say a LOT about that subject, and next week I will!

Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. In the intro to The Fenton Bible, Fenton said:

"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."

In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]